I was watching the Argentina vs Nigeria game the other night and started fiending for some N.O. Bounce. Before long I was searching for some Hot Boy Ronald and I stumbled on this fan video that made me lose it.

But let me back up a little bit first. Hot Boy Ronald is a 9th Ward Bounce artist who's collaborated with Choppa, Juvenile and others. Some of his certified bangers have included "Shake it like a oink" and "Walk like Ronald." The latter is on Bounce Back (2005 - King's Ent.). Looks like he's got a new record called Bottom of the Map. I tried to do a little background on him but Wikipedia's got nothing. Allmusic's got nothing. His own myspace doesn't have a bio (although it's got more bells and whistles than the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics). At that point it becomes a cold case.

As with any Bounce hit, popularity isn't measured in terms of CD sales, but how many youtube videos people post of themselves dancing to your song.

First up you've got Ashley in San Antonio sort of lethargically doing the "Walk like Ronald" with some enormous slippers on.



And then you've got Christina and friends. Um... still a little rough.



Mark, Nick and Stacy are a bit better. But the image quality will screw with your eyes.

In the mid-1980s, though hip hop was still primarily an East Coast phenomenon, it was quickly spreading to other locales like the musically rich bottom of the map, New Orleans. In 1984 Mannie Fresh, Mia X, DJ Wop and New York-transplant Denny D formed New Orleans' first rap crew, New York Incorporated. Two years later, The Ninja Crew (ninjas were hugely popular then) released the first N.O. rap recording "We Destroy" on Miami's 4-Sight label. In 1989, Fresh released D Rules the Nation with another local legend, Gregory D.

  

Not long after, the New Orleans rapper Warren Mayes emerged out of a growing scene that included Tim Smooth and 39 Posse. He was the first rapper in his city to release work through a major label when "Get It Girl" was distributed by Atlantic in 1991. He'd already released Doin Them Right in 1986 but the single "Get It Girl" would enter the New Orleans Rap pantheon. Old school New Orleanian hip hop fans still fondly recall the flashy, Camaro driving local legend who used to wow the crowds (appropriately, given his sartorial sensibility) at Club Adidas.

In hip-hop circles, you often encounter self-appointed arbiters of hip-hop taste who decry certain supposed negative trends in hip-hop. One frequent target for these musical Taliban is the prevalence of "bling," which is regarded as a new corruption of the scene (conveniently ignoring Gucci-clad, Rolls Royce-flaunting, "paid in full"-singing Eric B and Rakim or the massive gold ropes that adorned every rapper from Big Daddy Kane down the alphabet to Yella.) These paternal advocates of fiscal responsibility feel that rappers should be saving their money, I suppose, and not spending on ostentatious jewelry.

These conservative cultural watchdogs usually then go into an oft-repeated, well-rehearsed diatribe about meaningless, party-centric lyrics, the lack of reliance on DJing, the importance of being real and other things that place them ideologically in the traditionalist camp alongside their trad jazz forebears that griped when jazz moved beyond its Dixieland roots, the guy that yelled "Judas" when Dylan plugged in and prog-rock fans who decried the lack of humorless, showy, technical proficiency when glam began took over the charts and hearts of rock fans in the 70s.

But music evolves, regardless of and sometimes in defiance of the griping and sniping of those stodgy snobs who stand scowling and motionless with arms folded whilst the masses keep on getting down. In 1968 Nik Cohn virtually created rock criticism with his book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock.  As the title suggests, Cohn viewed the meaningless, shallow, fun music of rock's dawn in higher regard than the pretentious progressive rock of his day.  Another genre of music that haters love to hate is Bounce music. I felt like my love of this despised genre was validated, in a way, when the same Nik Cohn moved to New Orleans and worked with Choppa, an under-rated rapper from Algiers on the West Bank who had a big regional hit with "Choppa Style." Choppa dubbed Cohn "Nik the Trik" and Cohn wrote another book of criticism about his experiences, Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap.

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Like most people, I will never forget this time two years ago in the days/week after Hurricane Katrina first struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.  I was literally glued to the TV's non-stop news' streaming images of the devastation and tales of the horrific conditions. I was transfixed by the shocking images and I was shocked by news reports of the ridiculously delayed help getting to those who needed it  so desperately - mostly the region's poor inhabitants.  And yesterday, as I watched the 3-DVD set of Spike Lee's HBO documentary "When The Levees Broke," I was reminded of all the horrors of Katrina.

Since September 2005 the national media's focus on New Orleans may have faded considerably but the needs of its inhabitants have not.  Luckily there are still a great many individuals and organizations  actively involved in helping in the long recovery process that has quite a ways to go still.  As you probably already know Amoeba Music is one of the many organizations doing its bit in the effort to help the victims of Katrina, through its  Amoeba auctions to benefit Katrina victims. Meanwhile one of the many individuals involved in helping the recovery process is my former KALX Cultural Affairs Dept. buddy Rohit Gupta who is one of those wonderful, quietly humble and giving individuals who is always down to help out those in need.  Rohit lives and works in Los Angeles but  has been making frequent visits down to New Orleans to volunteer in the slow post-Katrina recovery process.  I invited Rohit to write a report on what it is really like right now in New Orleans for this AMOEBLOG.    Here is Rohit's story:

New Orleans emcee Mia X is from the old school and has been making hip-hop for twenty plus years. She is probably best known by most rap fans for the period she was signed to and associated with Master P's No Limit label but her rich rap history goes back long before that.  However to go online and do a search under the artist's early rap years will  inevitably yield inaccurate results - whether searching on the  AOL.music,  All Music Guide, Yahoo, VH1 websites or on the Wikipedia bio on her which erroneously states "Although born in New Orleans, Mia began her rapping career in Queens, New York as part of New York Incorporated, which disbanded after only four years. She then returned to New Orleans and met with Master P, an aspiring rapper and producer who signed her to his record label, No Limit.".   "That's not correct and I am tired of people telling me that I used to live in New York and started my career there," Mia X said by phone recently noting that she never lived in New York - always in New Orleans. So how did this misinformation get out there in the first place?  "I think it was someone at VH1 who first got it wrong in a story about me," Mia X said. It turns out it was John Bush - writer for All Music Guide who got it wrong but then all the other websites listed above (Yahoo, AOL, VH1) plus many others, including whoever entered the artist's Wikipedia information, all copied the erroneous bio.  The original mistake came about apparently based on the fact that one of the members (Denny D) of New York Inc. was from New York - but he lived in New Orleans before returning to New York - according to Mia X.   So for the record here is the updated, accurate bio on Mia X c/o the AMOEBLOG.: